This Side of the Pond

Parks, forests and campsites are open and I’d estimate that three quarters of the people I know are heading for a weekend under the stars, if they haven’t done so already. While I know you’re thankful for the unique opportunities of Wyoming, I thought it might deepen that feeling to know how your camping trips compare to the ones I endured back in Europe.

These days, apparently there are such things as “glamping”, which are foreign concepts to me. Overall, British camping is much more sophisticated since my heyday, when you were lucky to string a sheet of tarpaulin from a tree to keep your sleeping bag dry. I did, in fact, do exactly that one summer long ago.

They called it bivouacking, but it was really an opportunity for a group of adults to laugh themselves hoarse at how thoroughly a gaggle of city-dwelling teenagers will fail when handed three sheets of tarp and a couple of bungee cords. I suspect they “forgot” to check for holes in the tarp on purpose, and deliberately chose a night when it would be pouring with rain.

Campsites in my day were a patch of grass in a field, with little to obscure your vision of the next tent along. This is uncomfortable for Brits, who are not very good at making eye contact.

We don’t really have RVs in my part of the world, so you’d bring a tent and squash all your friends inside it like sardines in a can (if you were up to the challenge of erecting the thing in the first place in 30 mph gusts on an open plain). We didn’t have much to shore up the flooring, so it was always a “Princess and the Pea” situation if you didn’t get rid of every single pebble.

My favorite camping trip was with a group of university friends to a place overlooking the sea in Cornwall, where, as with most campsites, there was no fire pit or hookups. We had to use one of those metal foil pans with charcoal inside to cook, which to my inexperienced group meant a dinner of charred vegetable kebabs and baked beans heated in a can.

However, we did make a friend on that trip: a single mallard that for some reason felt the need to patrol the exterior of the campsite. It would waddle the border all day long, occasionally stopping to stand guard over my car, so we decided to call it the watchduck.

We figured out that we could measure the perimeter fence of the campsite and time the gaps between the watchduck’s arrivals. By doing so, we would be able to calculate the average land speed of a duck.

Why don’t any of us have an RV in the driveway, awaiting the first rays of summer sun? I think it’s mostly due to the narrow roads. Instead, there is a certain part of the population that prefers to take every vacation in a caravan, which is smaller than an RV and worse in every conceivable way.

I’ve noticed, in this part of world, that there is a handy separation between types of road. The big, fast ones are intended for getting from place to place as quickly as possible, while the little ones are for leisurely drives through the countryside in search of a recreation spot.

This is not the case in Britain, because we have too many destinations along the same roadways. The same piece of tarmac you follow to get to work will also lead to the local shopping mall, the beach, the supermarket and at least one campsite.

While this might sound convenient, it becomes less so when you consider that not all of those destinations require the same hurried pace. We Brits have good reason to feel hatred towards the caravans as they make their ponderous journey down a one-lane highway on a Friday at sunrise, blocking everyone behind them with just ten minutes to go before the working day begins.

Imagine driving a giant cardboard box through New York City at 10 mph as most of the morning commute seethes along behind you and that’s what you have in the parts of my country with the nicest campsites. Which, incidentally, includes my part of the country, where the cities are surrounded by areas of natural beauty that stay green all year round.

There is always an older couple driving the type of caravan that chooses a Friday morning for its travels. There are always a couple of unhappy teenagers wearing headphones in the back seat of the car pulling that caravan, and the car is always far too puny to be dragging a caravan behind it.

We don’t really do SUVs, you see – for the most part, Europeans opt for smaller vehicles because it widens your choice of parking space. They’re great for nipping into a two-foot gap on a city street, but not so useful for getting your caravan down the highway.

Of course, we don’t know that, because we don’t know any different, because none of us have ever experienced the benefit of the big, powerful SUVs and the pickups you guys are used to. You can’t really buy them in my homeland – there’s no market for a vehicle you can’t park.

So off they go, slow and sedate, tie ropes straining with the effort, most of the county staring daggers into the backs of their heads. You need to be thick-skinned to be a caravanner.

When they finally arrive (and get out of everyone’s way), the family can spend a lovely weekend packed into a metal can that’s not tall enough to stand up properly and so narrow your noses touch over the “dining table”.

You’ll find them parked in a pack, with their occupants sat outside the door in lawn chairs, trying not to admit that they don’t want to go back inside because it makes them claustrophobic. They’ll wait for dark to venture back in, flip up the “dining table” and sleep on the rock-hard benches alongside it.

I’ve never been a caravan person, for reasons I feel are now obvious. These days, I’ve been introduced to the wonders of a proper RV, so it’s unlikely I ever will be. But on the plus side, now we have one, I might even let myself be coaxed out of the house once or twice this summer.